9/11 stories + Original writing | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/series/9-11-stories+original-writing
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9/11 stories: iAnna by Will Selfhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/10/9-11-stories-ianna-will-self
News of patients with an unusual set of symptoms tempts Dr Zack Busner back to St Mungo's in the last of our series of fiction marking the anniversary of 9/11, an exclusive short story from Will Self<p>Dr Shiva Mukti, a psychiatrist at St Mungo's, a small and down-at-heel general hospital situated – rather bizarrely – in the dusty pit left behind when the Middlesex Hospital was demolished in the spring of 2008, had, through various serpentine manipulations, got hold of his senior colleague Dr Zack Busner's mobile phone number, and this he proceeded to call: 'Who is it?' Busner snapped. He was lying naked on his bed in the bedroom of the grotty first-floor flat he had recently rented on Fortess Road in Kentish Town above an insurance broker's. His phone had been balanced on the apex of his sweat-slicked tumulus of a belly, and when it rang it slid down, slaloming expertly through his cleavage, bounced off his clavicle and hit him full in his froggy mouth. Mukti identified himself and explained why he was calling. Busner responded disjointedly: 'Yes… oh, yes… Yes, I remember you – no, no I'm not. No – I'm not inter- For heaven's sake man, I'm <em>retired</em>, I don't want to examine your patient no matter how novel her symptoms may be… What's that? Not the first, you say – something of an emerging pattern..?</p><p> It was too late – the older psychiatrist had allowed himself to be hooked, rocking then rolling off the bed he stood with the phone caught in the corner of his mouth. Then the call pulled him into his clothes, out the door, down the stairs (through the wall he heard things like: 'Third party in Chesham, John?' and 'Better try Aviva…'), out the front door, down the road to the tube, down the escalator, through the grimy piping and up another escalator, until he found himself, landed and gasping below a flaking stucco portico beside a billboard picturing computer-generated luxury flats, 1,800 of them.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/10/9-11-stories-ianna-will-self">Continue reading...</a>Original writingShort storiesFictionWill SelfSeptember 11 2001Fri, 09 Sep 2011 23:05:03 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/10/9-11-stories-ianna-will-selfPhotograph: Frank Baron/Guardian'Busner stood staring down through the narrow, arched window into the mosh-pit of lunchtime central London, where a packed crowd of office prisoners had been let out for an hour's courtyard exercise' ... a woman checks a mobile device during a lunch break in London. Photograph: Frank BaronPhotograph: Frank Baron/Guardian'Busner stood staring down through the narrow, arched window into the mosh-pit of lunchtime central London, where a packed crowd of office prisoners had been let out for an hour's courtyard exercise' ... a woman checks a mobile device during a lunch break in London. Photograph: Frank BaronGuardian Staff2011-09-09T23:05:03Z9/11 stories: Second Skull by Rob Magnuson Smithhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/09/9-11-stories-rob-magnuson-smith
Mother's gone, father's drunk and uncle Nick has been holed up in the barn ever since he got back from Iraq. Tom and Sam struggle to keep the farm running in this new short story from Rob Magnuson Smith<p>Tom Hogue had been up in the oak all morning, ripping ivy from the strangled branches. He was ten and his brother Sam was twelve and they were the only ones on the farm still trying. The combine sat idle in the shed. The grain truck was caked with dust, and yellow heads of tansy ragwort ran rampant through the wheat fields.</p><p>By afternoon, up near the top rung of his ladder, Tom felt the air rush out of his canopy of leaves. When he peered through the branches his brother's ladder stood empty.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/09/9-11-stories-rob-magnuson-smith">Continue reading...</a>Original writingShort storiesFictionBooksCultureSeptember 11 2001Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:24:03 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/09/9-11-stories-rob-magnuson-smithPhotograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images'Nick squinted out of the barn's garret window at his nephews in the oak' ... an abandoned barn in Vermont. Photograph: Spencer Platt / Getty ImagesPhotograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images'Nick squinted out of the barn's garret window at his nephews in the oak' ... an abandoned barn in Vermont. Photograph: Spencer Platt / Getty ImagesGuardian Staff2011-09-09T08:24:03Z9/11 stories: Echo by Laila Lalamihttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/08/9-11-stories-laila-lalami
The ripples from Baghdad flow all the way to Bay City as Laila Lalami reflects on the decade since 9/11 in this exclusive short story<p>The deliveryman came at lunchtime, when Mona, still in her bathrobe, was rummaging through the pantry, looking for something to eat. Three packets of pasta, all of them half-empty and sealed with blue plastic clips, sat on the top shelf. On the bottom one were two bags of lentils and a jar of preserved lemons from the specialty store down the street. Then, behind a bottle of balsamic vinegar, she found a packet of instant oatmeal, which she held up as if she'd won a prize. There was no need to go out. "Be right there," Mona called when she heard the doorbell. She tightened the belt of her robe, ran her hands over her mass of tangled hair, and shuffled to the front door of her house. She looked, she knew, exactly like the kind of woman she had once promised herself she would never become.</p><p>A tall, well-built man in a brown uniform was waiting at her door. He seemed surprised when he saw her—she was usually at work at this time of day.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/08/9-11-stories-laila-lalami">Continue reading...</a>Original writingShort storiesFictionBooksCultureSeptember 11 2001Thu, 08 Sep 2011 08:19:42 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/08/9-11-stories-laila-lalamiPhotograph: David Papazian/Corbis'He was already on the other side of the white picket fence when she opened her door.' Photograph: David Papazian/CorbisPhotograph: David Papazian/Corbis'He was already on the other side of the white picket fence when she opened her door.' Photograph: David Papazian/CorbisLaila Lalami2011-09-08T08:19:42Z9/11 stories: The Second Death of Martin Lango by Helon Habilahttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/07/9-11-stories-helon-habila
A phone call from an old friend sets Charles thinking of his former life in Nigeria, but the connection between Lagos and Washington DC is difficult to establish in this new story from Helon Habila, the latest in our series of short fiction to mark the anniversary of 9/11<p>"Your brother called."</p><p>"Whose brother?" </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/07/9-11-stories-helon-habila">Continue reading...</a>Original writingShort storiesFictionBooksCultureSeptember 11 2001Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:20:25 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/07/9-11-stories-helon-habilaPhotograph: Tim Sloan/EPA'I took him to Dulles airport ... and stayed with him until he went through security' ... American airlines jets in 2001. Photograph: Tim Sloan / EPAPhotograph: Tim Sloan/EPA'I took him to Dulles airport ... and stayed with him until he went through security' ... American airlines jets in 2001. Photograph: Tim Sloan / EPAHelon Habila2011-09-07T08:20:25Z9/11 stories: Our Dead, Your Dead by Kamila Shamsiehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/06/9-11-stories-kamila-shamsie
As the power cuts out in the StreetSmart offices the temperature starts to rise, but with tempers fraying over the magazine's 9/11 anniversary issue, the Karachi night can only get hotter in this new short story by Kamila Shamsie<p>"Hussain just called. He's been queuing at the petrol pump for the last twenty minutes. But he says he'll be here before load shedding kicks off."</p><p>A sigh went up around the StreetSmart office. Every time the magazine's generator ran out of petrol the load-shedding seemed to start earlier than scheduled, and the air-conditioned cool on the twelfth floor wouldn't last more than a few minutes after the power cut out. The editor's decision, taken on the third day of Ramzan, to start working post-Iftar and carry on until dawn so everyone could sleep through the hours of deprivation was considerably less appealing with the prospect of spending it sweating in the dark until Hussain got back.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/06/9-11-stories-kamila-shamsie">Continue reading...</a>September 11 2001Short storiesFictionBooksCultureOriginal writingTue, 06 Sep 2011 08:02:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/06/9-11-stories-kamila-shamsiePhotograph: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images'The air-conditioned cool on the twelfth floor wouldn't last more than a few minutes after the power cut out' ... a street in Karachi during a power cut. Photograph: Asif Hassan / AFP / Getty ImagesPhotograph: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images'The air-conditioned cool on the twelfth floor wouldn't last more than a few minutes after the power cut out' ... a street in Karachi during a power cut. Photograph: Asif Hassan / AFP / Getty ImagesKamila Shamsie2011-09-06T08:02:00ZIntroducing 9/11 storieshttps://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/sep/05/introducing-9-11-stories
Ten years after the attacks on New York and Washington, we asked six writers to look back at a decade of change and conflict. What can fiction tell us about 9/11?<p>How do you mark an anniversary like 9/11? How do you examine what has changed and what has not in the 10 years since destruction was visited on New York and Washington out of a clear, blue sky? How do you reflect on the lives lost and the lies told in the course of what Pankaj Mishra calls our <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/02/after-september-11-pankaj-mishra" title="">"low, dishonest decade"</a>? </p><p>Over the last 10 years, this newspaper has charted the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/12/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety" title="">shock</a>, the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/10/iraq.jamesmeek" title="">reverberations</a> and the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/02/world-trade-centre-rescuers-health-risk" title="">legacy</a> of those events, but the effect on our imagination – on how we perceive the world – is perhaps as important to determine. Here on the books desk, we felt <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/9-11-stories" title="">an attempt should be made through fiction</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/sep/05/introducing-9-11-stories">Continue reading...</a>September 11 2001World newsBooksCultureShort storiesFictionOriginal writingMon, 05 Sep 2011 09:29:09 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/sep/05/introducing-9-11-storiesPhotograph: Mario Tama/GettyA security camera is seen in the World Trade Center PATH station July 9, 2007 in New York. Photograph: Mario Tama/GettyPhotograph: Mario Tama/GettyA security camera is seen in the World Trade Center PATH station July 9, 2007 in New York. Photograph: Mario Tama/GettyRichard Lea2011-09-05T09:29:09Z9/11 stories: Temple of Tears by Geoff Dyerhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/05/9-11-stories-geoff-dyer
Our series of new fiction reflecting on the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington opens with an exclusive short story from Geoff Dyer, in which the narrator wakes up in San Francisco, with the twin towers down and the world changed<p>When you wake up in the morning the world is as you find it. What's happened in the night is history or dream. That's the only way I can account for the weird feeling that I sort of missed 9/11. My girlfriend, Zoe, and I were living in San Francisco, and by the time we woke up the planes had hit and the Towers were down. We'd gone to bed late the night before and were still asleep when a friend called and told us what had happened. It was just past eight and what he said made so little sense it wasn't even surprising, just the blurred aftermath of something I might have been dreaming. Zoe turned on the TV straight away. There was still a lot happening, and the original footage was endlessly replayed, but the Towers were down and we were in a changed world.</p><p>I never got over this lag, never experienced the shock of things happening as they happened. I was out of step with the world, but for Zoe, who was suffering from anxiety, sadness and panic attacks, this catastrophic turn of events meant that the world had caught up with her frightened sense of the way things were. A side-effect of this, inevitably, was that we were out of step with each other. A couple of weeks previously, out in the desert, she had thought she was going to die, and now people were dying and we had woken up in a world where that is what had happened to people who had woken up in one world and then, a few hours later, found themselves in another, one that was falling apart beneath and around them. There was something wrong with me, too, she claimed on the following day, the day after 9/11, but I didn't know what it was and when I asked her to "elucidate" – strange how certain words pop out like that – she just shook her head.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/05/9-11-stories-geoff-dyer">Continue reading...</a>September 11 2001Original writingFictionShort storiesBooksCultureGeoff DyerMon, 05 Sep 2011 09:28:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/05/9-11-stories-geoff-dyerPhotograph: Hector Mata/EPA'I suggested that we get on our bikes again even though I wasn't convinced this was a good idea' ... a cyclist rides through a sand storm at the Burning Man festival. Photograph: Hector Mata / EPA / AFPPhotograph: Hector Mata/EPA'I suggested that we get on our bikes again even though I wasn't convinced this was a good idea' ... a cyclist rides through a sand storm at the Burning Man festival. Photograph: Hector Mata / EPA / AFPGeoff Dyer2011-09-05T09:28:00Z